Population growth
In biology or human geography, population growth is the increase in the number of individuals in a population. History Population began growing rapidly in the Western world early in the industrial revolution of the late 18th century. The reasons for the "Modern Rise of Population" were particularly investigated by the British health scientist Thomas McKeown (1912-1988). By the mid 20th century population growth in most of the Western World had leveled off while developing nations like China and India were experiencing population explosions. A theory of global overpopulation grew during this era, in part the result of the Post-World War II "Baby Boom," that saw a spike in population growth. By the middle of the 1960s, growth rates had peaked and had begun to steadily decline, by the turn of the millennium, many developed countries were beginning to see population decline as birthrates fell faster than the mortality rate. The worst cases of this were seen in Germany, Russia, Korea, and Japan. '21st Century Labor Shortage' A consequence of the reduced growth rate was an imbalance between the size of generations with respect to retirees and the working population, leading to a shortage of labor in the mid 2020s that impacted the entire developed world. A consequence of urbanization, low birth rates stemmed from a society's transition to post-agrarianism. In agrarian and low-level industrial societies, children were treated as an economic asset necessary for supporting the working population while young and large families led to multiple sources of income. Additionally, agrarian and industrial societies often lack the capital for a robust social-welfare system, thus larger families could more easily support parents and grandparents in old age. Urban, post-agrarian societies do not require such a readily available source of unskilled labor, and in fact the cost of raising a child goes up exponentially with a society's requirements for success in life. Thus children in post-agrarian societies are the height of conspicuous consumption, as they hinder the productivity of workers, reduce the upward momentum of careers, and drain significant economic assets with no possibility of making up the difference until they are well into their 20s. Thus, Urbanization incentivises people to have fewer, if any, children. By the 2020s, urbanization had reached a tipping point where the world entered a transitional period in which the older generations had not yet died, leaving a relatively small number of workers supporting a very large group of retirees. This was made more pronounced due to the development of longevity and life extension technologies in developed nations. The Market Crash of 2027 was essentially a result of this transitional period, as the market could not meet demand and the working age population could not be productive enough to pay off the debts incurred by the older generation, leading to a major economic dislocation, ultimately resolved by automation and immigration policies adopted in the late 2020s and 2030s. 'List' Category:Former countries in Europe Category:Former countries in Asia Category:Former countries in North America Category:Former countries in South America Category:Former countries in the British Isles